The March Real Estate Market

THE HOUSE MARKET OVERALL

“In like a lion and out like a lamb”: one of the common sayings about March weather.

If your observations confirmed it this March, chalk one up for the proverb. But if March did something else, don’t totally reject the proverb – it might turn out to be true next year.

And just like the weather, so is the housing market:  variable, full of surprises, and it might even be changing. – Who would have guessed?

“In like Lion” is true so far - February sales data were baffling because they were so strong, and March continued that trend.

Looking at the three counties, Palm Beach had a slight increase (+3%) in list prices and a 44% increase in sold homes, albeit with an 8% decrease in selling prices. But: the disconnect between seller’s wishful thinking and buyer’s acceptance rose by 19 points to 189, the highest number since this number was recorded (2006).  

Broward County was a bit more civil, with list prices up a fraction, a decreased disconnect, sales increasing by 23% and selling prices increasing by 3%. Buyers perhaps rewarded less greed?

Finally, Miami-Dade county fared even better with an 8% increase in selling prices combined with a 22% increase in sales.

The numbers:

    * Houses for sale: 24,345
    * Inventory: 7 months (-28.6%)
    * Median list price: $288,950 (+2.7%)
    * Median list price per sf: $141
    * Houses sold last month: 3276 (+32.9%)
    * Median selling price: $172,667 (no change)
    * Median selling price per sf: $95 (no change)

(Percent changes are month-over-month)

(SFH data Feb 2010 to Feb 2011. Red: median list price, green: median selling price, blue: inventory in months. Data source: SEF-MLS)


THE MODERN HOME MARKET

It is time for the regular disclaimer/explanation how the modern-stats on this page are collected:

Data for all sold houses are reliable and for an MLS-participant (means for a Realtor®) easily accessible from the SEF-MLS.

In contrast, sales data for modern houses are much more difficult to come by, because the MLS does not allow filtering for modern architecture.

Therefore, all statistics for modern architecture rely on observed data, and those observations, coming from no less than seven MLS-searches, are very time-intensive and occasionally more art than science.

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As always, Tobias invites your comments and questions. And thank you for reading this page.

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